A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with NASA's TESS spacecraft on Wednesday, April 18, 2018. The same booster will launch CRS-15 on Friday, June 29.

SpaceX

Raymond reiterated what the local unit, the 45th Space Wing, has coming down the pike: The “Drive to 48,” or a target of supporting up to 48 launches a year, which translates to one a week on average. That could come as soon as 2020 as Blue Origin enters the manifest along with SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Orbital ATK, NASA and possibly others.

“That will represent almost 50 percent of the world’s launches from that one place,” Raymond said, noting that the infusion of autonomous operations into launches will help make that possible. SpaceX’s Falcon 9, for example, supports the Autonomous Flight Termination System, which can automatically destroy a rocket if deemed dangerous or straying from its path. In return, it has reduced cost and staffing requirements for the Air Force.

Gen. John Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command, speaks during the 34th Space Symposium in ...more

Gen. John Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command, speaks during the 34th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs on Thursday, April 19, 2018.

The Eastern Range, which encompasses Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, appears to be well on its way toward achieving that goal.

“If you have not been to the Eastern Range in the last two years, you would not recognize the Eastern Range,” Brig. Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of the 45th Space Wing and director of the range, said during a panel at the Space Symposium. “We are moving at the speed of business, not the inertia of bureaucracy. We are delivering agile launch today.”

In 2008, Monteith said, the wing supported seven launches; this year, he expects a 400% increase using 20 percent fewer people and 25 percent less instrumentation. And this year’s manifest so far appears to support that: Since Jan. 1, the Space Coast has seen nine launches ranging from national security missions to Monday’s launch of TESS on a Falcon 9, a NASA spacecraft built to find new planets.

Monteith also noted significant scheduling changes for the wing, which uses a schedule review board to plan launches up to three years in advance. The wing, however, is now shifting to launching on readiness and not on schedule.

“You give me a launch date three years out and the only thing I’ll guarantee you is that will not be the date we launch on,” Monteith said. “Traditionally, it would take six to nine months to get on the schedule on my range. Last year, we demonstrated that we could do it in 19 days.”

The Space Coast will have to wait until early May, however, to see the next rocket generate plumes of smoke and fire. SpaceX is planning to launch the latest version of its Falcon 9 rocket, known as “Block V” and designed for greater reusability, for the first time. The mission will take Bangladesh’s first geostationary satellite to orbit from KSC’s pad 39A.

And if schedules hold, this summer will host the second flight of SpaceX’s massively popular Falcon Heavy rocket with an Air Force payload as soon as June, followed by another mighty vehicle – United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy – with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe in July.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook at @EmreKelly.

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